|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2014 8:03 pm
This time, Irene did not come back to Earth in her bedroom. Knowing that she might be out for a while, and come back in less-than-pristine condition, she opted to stay at Ellie's for the night. Which had the bonus effect of not having to worry about her parents deciding to check up on her, only to find an empty bed. So far, such incidents had been rare, and she'd been able to make up explanations for them. But it made living at home more difficult, and she couldn't help but look forward to the new school year, if only so that her privacy would be assured.
She arrived in a cloud of dust, covered in dirt and twigs and leaves, which was not the kind of entrance she'd been going for. A shower was definitely called for, ideally before she did anything else. But she was excited about her discovery, and she waved her bouquet in the air as she struck a pose in front of Ellie's bed. "I found something a-may-zing! I think."
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2014 8:22 pm
Tonight was not a night for sleep. There were plenty of things going on in the near future that managed to keep the blonde tomboy awake. However, she still was in her bed, dressed for sleep. It was still too hot to go under any semblance of covers, so the girl was sprawled out in boxers and a tank top, hands behind her head as she stared at the ceiling.
"...is there anything interesting up there?" a certain manx cat asked as Ellie continued to stay so focused upon the space above them.
"Nooooooope!"
Not being powered up meant that the girl wasn't aware that Irene had showed up until she announced an amazing find.
"Welcome back!" was the cheery greeting offered as Ellie began to sit herself upright.
Ellie sat up slowly, but actually stopped once she saw what was being waved around.
"...Oh... you found some Peaceblossoms?" As she recalled, her teammate had gone to her home world, so it would make sense to have those flowers.
"....peace.... blossoms?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2014 8:43 pm
"Peaceblossoms?" Irene repeated, coming out of her victory pose in order to study the flowers again. It was kind of remarkable that they'd survived her shaking them like pompoms, but having only one petal probably helped. Not to mention that goopy stuff she'd put them in seemed to have made them practically invulnerable. Still, she was in no hurry to test out the limits of their new and improved sturdiness.
Her excitement hadn't faded, even though Ellie didn't seem too surprised, and the words just tumbled out. "There was a sort of shrine thing- well, there was a whole forest full of them, really- but this one had a ton of these flowers in them, and a big pool of slime in the middle. Or at least it felt like slime, really slippery and gross. But I put some flowers in it last time. I mean, it felt like the thing to do! And I went back and they weren't dead, see!"
She held out the flowers again, and in the process, got a look at her hands and arms. "Yikes. Can I take a quick shower? I don't want to get dirt all over everything!" Though she was a little late to completely prevent that.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2014 8:52 pm
Ellie lifted a hand to get her teammate to stop.
"...Power down first... then worry about the shower..." The hand held up to her teammate then gestured to the door cracked open at the side. It was rather convenient that she had her own bathroom and didn't have to share with her parents. A lot less questions when things happened like this.
*********, unlike Ellie, seemed to have caught the contagious excitement.
"Oh wow! That's really sounds interesting! Can you leave them here while you clean off? I want to check them out a bit!" Her whiskers were fanned out as she attempted to wiggle her way closer.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2014 9:02 pm
Powering down first meant that the clothes she'd worn to Ellie's house were going to be a mess. Irene wrinkled her nose at the thought, but she knew that it was the right thing to do. Keeping her things clean wasn't worth the risk to Ellie's family. That didn't mean she had to like it.
The stems of the flowers were still wrapped in her gloves, sticky and oily and dirty. She looked around for a moment before placing them on the plastic bag she had brought with her, which had contained a few treats she'd brought from work. "Be careful," she warned, "that slippery stuff is really hard to wash off once it gets on something!"
Once she knew her treasures were being looked after, she went into the bathroom. A few moments later, the gloves vanished, and with nothing left to hold them in a bouquet, the flowers seemed to spread themselves out on top of the plastic.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2014 9:34 pm
With Lydia now tending to her cleanliness, the cat hopped onto the floor and approached the flowers with caution. Her whiskers were fanned out as her nose twitched, curiously investigating this foreign fauna.
"...fascinating... neither of these smell exactly like anything I have ever seen, but they smell similar to things I have seen... if that makes sense..."
"...it makes sense..." was the flat response from the bed.
The cat's ear twitched at the lack of enthusiasm. As she circled the plastic bag, she commented "The liquid it is coated in smells like a sort of oil... nothing I can specifically put a finger on..."
"...yep..."
The cat groaned lightly before glancing up to the bed thing time. "...are you going to contribute anything useful to this... or are you just going to let us figure things out ourselves..."
The blonde on the bed shook her head. "...it'd be rude if I started talkin' 'bout her asteroid without her bein' out 'ere..."
"Ah!" Considering that an acceptable response, the cat continued to investigate, this time keeping her observations to herself. Lydia would finish up soon enough and then they could continue this conversation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2014 8:45 pm
After her last visit to space, Irene had needed to scrub for almost an hour to get all of the gunk off. This time, since dirt was her only weapon, the process was much faster. She unbraided her hair and rinsed the worst of the dust from it, but didn't wash. It would be rude to use all of Ellie's shampoo, assuming they used the same kind, which they probably didn't. And she wasn't about to use some brand she had never heard of.
After about ten minutes, the sound of running water stopped abruptly. A few moments later, Lydia came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel. Her hair dripped as she went to the bag she'd brought and rummaged through it, coming out with a fluffy pink bathrobe and a beach towel with a picture of dolphins printed on it. When held lengthwise, the towel was almost long enough to completely wrap her hair. Once it was contained, she pulled the robe on and tied it shut, then sat on the floor next to the flowers.
"Okay. So." She looked at the flowers again, now that her frenzied excitement had died down. They didn't look like anything special, but for some reason, they still made her smile. "I'm not sure where to start anymore. It's all kind of confusing, you know?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2014 9:01 pm
Ellie rolled on her bed until she was upside-down and looking towards Lydia after she had robed up. She rubbed her hands together before clapping them together (quietly, her parents were still asleep).
"...20 questions... go!"
The cat had slipped over the Lydia's ankles as she loomed near the flowers. However, the blonde's sudden command seemed almost unprompted.
"...wait... what?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2014 3:45 pm
"I beg your pardon?" Lydia asked, equally confused. "I, er... I'm not sure where to go with that. I mean, you could ask questions in that format, but it doesn't lend itself to a cohesive narrative. I mean, to my recollection, that game is meant to identify a single item or concept using a series of yes-or-no questions, so I'm not sure how it would help, since we've already established a topic of discussion."
Her speech became slightly more formal, with each word clearly enunciated, trying to mask the fact that she had absolutely no idea what was going on anymore.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2014 4:49 pm
Ellie didn't right herself, remaining upside down and looking at the quizzical faces in amusement. Her hands were still pressed together as she explained "...I can answer questions with more than 'yes' and 'no'... but th'easiest way t'get started it to start askin' questions."
The cat's head tilted to the side ever so slightly as she considered the blonde's words.
"...so you know what these flowers actually are...?"
The blonde parted her hands, closing the fingers for all except her pinky on her right hand. "...waste of a question... but yeah... I know what they are... Peaceblossoms... said it earlier, didn't I?"
Gold eyes drifted to Lydia, seeming to wordlessly invite her to ask a question as well.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2014 12:03 pm
Well, that was somewhat anticlimactic. Lydia could feel what remained of the high she'd experienced on her asteroid start to vanish. Annoyance replaced it. This was her discovery! She was the one who had climbed a mountain (well, sort of) in order to find things right. So why was Ellie trying to take that away from her?
That probably wasn't the point. She knew that, but knowing didn't stop her from feeling annoyed.
"So the first time I went was a few weeks ago, as I said." In her frustration, Lydia spoke more to ********* than to Ellie, trying to reclaim control of the situation. "It's... I don't know, bigger than I expected, and smaller too, all at the same time. I think the city I wound up in, or what was left of it at least, was on a plateau." She could remember how the scenery seemed to drop off a ways beyond the plaza. "And the buildings are a mess, really dusty and probably unsafe, but I could see a forest in the distance, so I headed for that. And it was really something- all sorts of temples and shrines mixed in with trees and vines. I wonder if it was supposed to be that way, or if everything was just overgrown?"
It was sort of a question, if not directly asked as one. Lydia glanced at Ellie, wondering if she was going to get an answer for that.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2014 8:13 pm
It was odd to watch Ellie as she listened to Lydia's descriptions. The blonde closed her eyes, seeming to fully focus on her friend's words as she described her own odd journey on her home world. The captain was not necessarily a native of Irene, but she had been there a few times in her previous lifetime. The memories were there, but not nearly as crisp as the ones from her own asteroid.
Gradually a smile seemed to curl upon her lips.
The manx did not seem to have such an advantage, but remained attentive to Lydia's words. With a faint chuckle, the cat did remind the girl "It's been at least a thousand years since your asteroid has seen a person if I were to guess... so a bit of mess is probably to be expected!"
Momentarily the cat side-glanced to the smiling blonde. "It already sounds like you have more on your world than Iris has on hers though..."
Though her eyes were shut, the tomboy still was able to speak.
So she did.
"...not everyone is as privileged as I was when it came to asteroids..." It was clearly sarcasm, though gentler than her typical biting sarcasm.
Eventually her eyes opened and gold eyes focused upon the complementary indigo ones.
"...I suspect a bit of both, Lydia... some purposeful, some overgrowth. As th'cat said... a thousand years is a long time."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2014 8:44 pm
Even though Ellie and ********* seemed to refer to the asteroid as being hers, Lydia felt no sense of ownership for the world she had just returned from. She knew that she drew her powers from it. That she had lived there, once upon a time in another life. But those things didn't give her the rights to the entire place, just like living in the same dorm room at Crystal for four years didn't mean she could waltz back in when the school year started up again. She was still working out what her relationship with Irene the asteroid was.
Still, having that bit of insight was interesting, and she filed it away. "Okay. So this forest went up a mountain, and there was one really big building partway up that I wanted to get to. But it was too far. And there were these statues- no, never mind the statues." Those weren't part of the story, and she didn't want to share them with anyone. "There was a shrine with a bunch of flowers in it, and I knocked some of them over- by accident, at first, but there were a lot of them, and a pool of the slippery stuff, and a bowl. So I filled the bowl with slippery stuff and put the flowers in it, and when I went back today, they were like this! Not dead, not brittle, but, well, whatever this is."
She picked one up again and carefully bent the stem in different directions. Each time, it sprung back to its initial position, seemingly no worse for wear.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2014 9:56 pm
********* might have been a Mauvian, but certain instincts didn't die down with her intellect. Seeing the flower spring about in such a manner caused the manx to sit up on her hind legs and bat with her forelegs at the offending flower.
"...that liquid is interesting smelling!" she offered as her eyes seemed to fixate themselves on the blossom.
Ellie couldn't help but grin. "...well... preservatives are awesome things when used right, I guess!" Every world had their secrets. Iridians had their paints, and Irenians had several of their own secrets which made people envious.
Granted, the asteroid of Irene also had its drawbacks as did every world as well.
"...so... anythin' interestin' 'bout th'Peaceblossoms?" she prompted in a less than innocent manner.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 4:53 pm
At the mention of preservatives Lydia wrinkled her nose. "No wonder that stuff feels so gross. I certainly won't be using it on food anytime soon." The thought of eating anything treated with that slimy substance was enough to turn her stomach. Dealing with the flowers was bad enough, and she dropped the one she'd been bending about back onto the pile.
She didn't really care for the way Ellie was prompting her, either. Like she knew the story already, and was just being kind enough to let someone else tell snippets of it. "I wanted to make it to the really big building this time," she went on, speaking primarily to ********* again. "It was a long way up, and there wasn't really a path. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I mean, if you're going to build this huge thing, you want to make sure people can get to it, right? But it was really tricky."
There were a few scratches and scrapes visible on Lydia's legs, and several others that were covered by her bathrobe. In the morning, those would probably be joined by a handful of bruises. All of which was far better than what might have happened if she'd missed a handhold, or fallen the wrong way.
"And then when I did make it, it was pitch black in there, and I didn't want to trip on something and break my neck. And it was really dusty, but I didn't want to just leave after all that effort. And I wasn't coughing at first. I think... maybe it was because of these?" She nudged the flowers with her toes, wondering if she'd just imagined the whole thing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
